I have decided to hike the PCT in 2024 or 2025, if we make it that long as humans (honestly, I don't hold a lot of hope but we'll see). Lots of training, lots of other hikes, Havasupai again (again). Two years of training and working to pay every last thing off so I won't have to worry about bills while I'm on the 6 month hike. So that's a thing I'll be doing. I'm excited. Just gotta start somewhere, you know?
So here's the plan:
1) Biggest, hardest for me Right Now - cutting out alcohol. Seriously - ever since the pandemic curbed life in 2020, I have been hitting the bottles pretty hard as my version of therapy. It has not ended up doing much good in my life. This is dumb, but it's real. It's an actual thing that I struggle with and need to get a handle on before doing anything like this. I had to cancel Havasupai this year because my body just wouldn't allow me to hike without going into some kind of cardiac arrest and my stomach is sloshing about at all times because of the "water weight" - aka boozy belly. I'm trying, okay?
2) Next! Using that gym membership I've been hoarding for showers on the road and nothing else. Vanlife has taught me a few things about when and how often one needs to shower and the Planet Fitness $10 a month access pass has done wonders. But I haven't really used it for much else, you know? I need to.
This will start with an easy 1-3 days of treadmill and stairs. From there, once the tread and the stairs stop being such a hard task, I'll move on to splitting my days into cardio - tread, stairs - and then weight training on the other days - legs, legs, legs!
3) The only thing better than training your body is training your GUT! I will be diving into a caloric deficit until I hit a good, healthy, strong spot, and then I'll be focusing on Just energy. If you're hiking long distances, you have to be able to keep going! Stamina is not my strong suit. At all. *insert farting noise here* I also need a more regular bowel (shh).
Starting diet - keto-centric with low calorie intake and lots and lots and LOTS of water (I don't know why water is so difficult to drink without being dangerously parched). I've even tried water enhancements and add-ons like MIO and the like, but it's still just like . . . water with colorful, tasty sediment in it and that gives me the ick. No words.
4) Find someone to hike the PCT with.
Generally, when you start the PCT, you get on a bus of a dozen other people starting the hike, so you're not actually *alone* when you start. The issue is that you have to keep up with someone if you're hiking with them, and that just isn't for me. I am very slow, but I'm hoping with my training and strengthening, I will speed up a bit. I've never been fast - even Havasupai took me several hours to hike into and probably double the amount of time to hike out of. The hope is that someone will take pity on me, or better yet, someone slow will also be hiking the PCT that I can link up with. A girl can dream, CANT SHE?!
5) Document EVERYTHING - that's right - everything!
From videos, youtube or tiktok (rip?), blogs here, FB posts, etc. I will be taking people along for the ride. I am assuming that this journey of strength and longevity will take me two years, but why not hope for less? I think I'm more worried that the United States will be in ruin before long, so I don't want to wait too long and miss my chance. Fleeing the US might be in all of our futures.
I'm a big fan of FB posts and TikTok updates and this blog, meaning I keep up with those weekly. My issue is accountability. I gotta stay on it! So here we are.
Is this a bad idea? Probably. Well, maybe not bad per se, but definitely out there. This is a musing more than a plan, but I like to pretend I have faith in myself and my abilities. It's doable for thousands of people, so it has to be doable for me. Right?
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